In some fairly distant but unspecified future a
cheaper form of energy generation has helped
transform the world. With electrical power available everywhere on land and often under the sea
as well, it is no longer necessary to concentrate the
population in cities, and much arable land that was
previously inaccessible can now be profitably
farmed. Blacky is a technician aboard the Gila
Monster, an enormous armored service vehicle
that installs and maintains the power lines. On
rare occasions the crew is also called upon to arrange a conversion, connecting a remote community to the grid, although that happens rarely.
Significantly, workers aboard these mobile maintenance shops are known as devils and demons.
Blacky has just been promoted to the equivalent of foreman when he and his crew are diverted
to perform a conversion near the U.S.-Canadian
border, bringing electricity to a small community of
fewer than two dozen renegade biker types and
nonconformists who have no desire to be linked to
the outside world. They are the spiritual descendants of the Hell’s Angels, and their home is called
Haven. Blacky admits to feeling some sympathy for
them despite their squalid living conditions. They
have their own code of honor and they live by it
and are not bothering anyone else. But the law requires that they accept power connections if they
want to live together. Although Blacky is inclined
to leave them to their own devices, Mabel—his
partner—is determined to install the lines because
she sees in their rebellious lifestyle the seeds of the
old violence that once plagued the world. Inevitably the conflict turns deadly, and the leader of
the dissidents is killed.
The story has also appeared as “Lines of
Power,” which is in some ways a more appropriate
title. The power in the story is not limited to the
energy traveling through the physical lines laid by
the Gila Monster, but also extends to the ties of
authority within the outcast community of Haven,
between Blacky and his cosupervisor, and between
society at large and the handful of dissidents.